49th Annual New York Film Festival - The Skin I Live In Gala Presentation

At “The Cinema Inside Me”� program at the 2009 NYFF, Pedro Almodóvar surprised many when he spoke of his great love for American horror and science fiction films—a clue, it turns out, to what he was then just planning. With his new film, Almodóvar ventures headlong into those very genres. Dr. Robert Ledgard (a welcome return for Antonio Banderas) is a world famous plastic surgeon who argues for the development of new, tougher human skin; unbeknownst to others, Dr. Ledgard has been trying to put his theory into practice, keeping a young woman, Vera (Elena Anaya), imprisoned in his mansion while subjecting her to an increasingly bizarre regime of treatments. Fascinated by the thin layer of appearance that stands between our perception of someone and that person’s inner essence, Almodóvar here addresses that continuing theme in his work in a bold, unsettling exploration of identity. A Sony Pictures Classics release.